by Brian Daley
Dincrist, bearing down, was more concerned with the leverage of arms and torsos; Alacrity relaxed sinuously, sliding in as though he were boneless, and took the shipping magnate's legs out from under him in a quick foot-sweep.
But Dincrist, sportsman and athlete, was fast and strong, even discounting his age. He landed well and almost gave Alacrity a knee in the groin as the breakabout pounced on him. They rolled, battling wildly, back and forth over the field-tamped campground.
The Gresham's beast had driven Floyt back up against the bulk of the processor, where his clutching hand found a gillie's wooden staff. Floyt took it and whirled it out before him horizontally just as the creature sprang at his throat. Its jaws clamped on the thick staff, splintering the wood, and locked there.
Alacrity had the satisfaction of connecting solidly with Dincrist's mouth, knocking the carefully kept silver hair askew, seeing blood flow. The tanned gentility faded; Dincrist howled as he buffeted and struck at Alacrity with fist and crop, like a child in a tantrum. The opponents hammered at one another.
At the same time, the Gresham's beast, its forelegs clear of the ground, growled, yanked, and tugged Floyt this way and that. Floyt could only feel thankful in a horrified way that the beast's reflex was to hang on to the staff rather than release and try for a new hold. Still, he could barely keep his grip, and the thing was slowly biting the staff in two, its reeking, steamy breath making him gag.
Floyt's clumsy, intermittent kicks to the horror's underside seemed not to bother it in the least. If it disarmed him, it would certainly either maim him or turn on Alacrity to help its master. The staff began to splinter, and the Gresham's beast screamed, sensing victory.
Alacrity heard it just as he put the sole of his boot squarely into Dincrist's stomach. The older man's breath whooped from him, and he rolled away, groaning. The breakabout surged to his feet and tore Dincrist's crop away from him, twisting its control to maximum. He rammed it into the Gresham's beast's ribs just as it bit through the staff.
A charge of nerve-fire went through it, and the creature bounded aside in a paroxysm, away from the pain-directly into the feeding hopper of the taxidermic robot. Its long tail was held fast, for the moment, by the idling feeder mechanism, and scrabbling to free itself, it almost snapped Floyt's foot off in a near-miss.
The Earthman, with a feeling of surreal calm, slapped down the control bar.
"No!" Dincrist shouted from where he lay. But the machine sucked the Gresham's beast, its bulging, hate-filled eyes fixed on Floyt, out of sight and began making grisly sounds.
The shipping tycoon was on his feet, but Alacrity still had the crop, and others had run to find out what was going on, among them the two Severeemish envoys and an enraged Redlock. The governor saw that they were going to clash again. He stepped between them and, shorter than either by half a head and more, shoved them stumbling away from him in either direction. From the anger like a black hood above his eyes, it was apparent that he was in no mood to be provoked. Both opponents quieted.
"Ah, yes," Theater General Sortie-Wolf hissed unpleasantly. "The High Truce."
He couldn't be enjoying this more if you tickled him, Floyt thought.
"This bacterium is responsible for breaking the Truce," Dincrist managed, calmer now, just as Admiral Maska arrived to see what was going on.
"I got hit first; I hit back," Alacrity spat. His conditioning was now twisting his gut, as was Floyt's; they realized their peril.
Just then the clatter of the taxidermic robot drew everyone's attention. Their eyes went to the delivery platform of the processor.
With the others distracted, Floyt backed to the surface skimmer, where the woodsprite still cowered in hiding. He had no intention of seeing it fed into the machine.
Out onto the delivery platform slid the Gresham's beast, beautifully stuffed and mounted, in a very realistic pose. Its hide was clean, its teeth sparkled, and its glassy eyes were filled with hatred.
"Well," Alacrity proclaimed loudly, "you've gotta admit the effect's really lifelike. He's gonna look great in the trophy room."
Only Redlock's presence saved him from another attempt on his life.
Chapter 14
Satisfaction Guaranteed
Dame Tiajo wasn't in the least amused.
Alacrity quickly lost his smile when the matter was taken before her, immediately upon the return to Frostpile. Floyt was quite frankly intimidated, belaboring himself, How could we have gotten ourselves into so much trouble in so short a time?
"Do you know what you've done, you foolish men?" The old woman's rouged face was quivering, her eyes searing them. Dincrist could no more meet her gaze than could Alacrity and Floyt.
Redlock stood near, having delivered an unbiased summation of what he knew of the incident. But the essential part, the question of who had provoked whom, and where the guilt lay, was still unclear.
Dorraine was present with her father, First Councillor Inst. Seven Wars and Sortie-Wolf were on hand, intent on seeing the Severeemish Usages observed to the letter. Admiral Maska was in attendance as well.
"You've broken the High Truce, that's what you've done, you foolish little men!" Tiajo added.
"I'm 197 centimeters," Alacrity muttered, studying the floor.
"Shut up!" Floyt and Tiajo both bellowed at him at the same moment, shocking one another. Floyt turned deathly pale, eyes screwed shut. Inst and Redlock exchanged the smallest grin; Dorraine hid her smile.
"You may discount the height of you that extends above your ankles, Master Fitzhugh," the grandam continued, tight-lipped. "For that is where I shall cut you off." Alacrity swallowed. "Someone is going to pay for what happened this morning. Now, it all seems to revolve around who struck the first blow. That would seem to be you, Captain Dincrist."
"But … Dame Tiajo, these runagates interfered with my rightful pursuit of my prey. That is, my party's prey; we'd been chasing it for over an hour."
"And that is provocation under the Usages of the Hunt," Minister Seven Wars contributed. "The Earther and his escort are clearly implicated."
"Yes, so long as the woodsprite was sole prey," Sortie-Wolf added. "One cannot pursue more than one prey and have exclusive right of pursuit." He looked at the disputants slyly.
"But he had two!" Floyt burst out. "Captain Dincrist shot down this—this bird, flying creature. We saw it."
"I bet we'd have trouble getting his friends' testimony on that one, though," Alacrity put in, addressing Tiajo.
"Where is the creature in question, the woodsprite?" Tiajo inquired.
"It escaped," Floyt announced, deadpan. In truth, the woodsprite had raced for the tree line, all elbows, rear end, and sole pads—escaping.
"The bone of contention has departed, eh?" Tiajo eyed Floyt, evaluating him in a new light, choosing not to contest his story. "Then, what does all this matter? Mutual apologies seem in order."
"Alas, no, Dame Tiajo," Seven Wars intoned. "That would violate the Severeemish Usages. There has been an infraction against the High Truce. This cannot be tolerated." Alacrity, paling, thought, War!
"But it's all so hopelessly muddled," Dorraine said. "Surely the Severeemish don't approve of punishing the innocent along with the guilty."
"Indeed. It is muddled beyond any solution save one," Seven Wars shot back. "A death duel will settle it."
Floyt felt a sudden need to sit down. Dorraine gasped. Inst exploded, "You can't be serious!" Maska watched without comment, and Dincrist's mouth was a silent O. Alacrity reflected that if the Severeemish weren't the ones who'd tried to eliminate Dincrist and/or himself in the buzzball tank, they were doing somebody an awfully big favor, whether they knew it or not.
"Absolutely not," Tiajo decreed. "The pitting of human beings against one another in that way was stopped when we threw down the Presidium. I will not permit it."
"You would accept our fealty and then mock our Observances?" Sortie-Wolf demanded hotly. Redlock looked at Alacrity as if he'd tak
en just about enough. But before the governor could speak, First Councillor Inst intervened.
"Wait! I see an alternative under your own Usages."
They all turned to him. The mahogany face was regal and composed, the voice deep and precise. "Your own histories speak of the Severeemish Lords Requiter and Paladin, who had a muddled dispute between them. If memory serves, the elders gave them permission to settle it with a contest short of a death duel."
Dorraine took her father's arm and kissed him. They all watched the two envoys expectantly.
"Ah, yes," Sortie-Wolf said, "but those circumstances were quite extraordinary."
"So are these."
"Are we to be bent to every little Severeemish dot and dash?" Tiajo thundered. "Here we have a compromise within your Usages. Or have you come here looking for war?"
"Requiter and Paladin sailed one-man barbaustoes in a race through Slaughter Strait," Sortie-Wolf snapped. "As dangerous as a duel. What will you have? More tank-hopping? More ball-hitting? Pah!"
Tension gave the chamber a lightning feel. Floyt, like everyone else, was thinking desperately. Then, what seemed like a marvelous solution lit up his brain.
"Airbikes!" he shouted triumphantly.
* * * *
"Do you guys realize how much money's riding on this race?" Sintilla was beside herself with excitement. "Spican bank notes, ovals, ducats, currency bangles—they're betting a fortune, everybody in Frostpile."
That stopped Alacrity. Maybe it would be more profitable to throw the … But his conditioning made him half dizzy at the unformed thought, because Dame Tiajo had vowed that, as executrix, she would penalize the airbike race's losers, by which she meant Floyt as well as the breakabout. The race would be run with two-man airbikes, at the insistence of the Severeemish, since Floyt was a part of the altercation.
And that meant that to lose was to jeopardize the inheritance that had brought them all the way from Terra. So Alacrity banished from his mind thoughts of anything except winning.
"Where's your cash riding, Tilla?" he snarled at her as he fit the sweatband down over his forehead.
"On you guys, of course. They're giving the most fantastic odds against you!"
"Will you quit being so damn happy about it?"
The roof that served as Frostpile's airbike hangar and takeoff station had become so crowded with bettors and other celebrants that Tiajo had been obliged to have it cleared, ordering all but a select few to remove themselves and find observation points elsewhere. Nearby roofs were filling up with laughing, shouting, drinking, boisterous people who were perfectly aware of the possibility of death or injury resulting from the race, and not in the least depressed about it.
Many of the men and some of the women were wearing copies of or fanciful variations on Floyt's cutaway, whipped up for them by Frostpile's resident designers and couturiers. Given the wealth and influence enjoyed by most of the guests, all signs pointed to Floyt's having started a far-reaching fashion craze.
"I'm still having a hard time believing you suggested this," Alacrity told Floyt. "You've never even been in one of these kites."
"But you have," Floyt reminded him patiently, for something like the twentieth time, as he pulled on lightweight biking shoes. "Alacrity, you and Dincrist and the others have dabbled in airbiking, but I am a cyclist."
He stood up. Though the shoes were already broken in, he'd put patches of skinsheath on his feet for protection. "I don't know much about star travel or guns and all that, but I'm very good at what's important now. You'll see!"
Has he changed, Alacrity wondered, or am I just seeing him more clearly?
The Terran looked again at Thistle, their airbike. She was a muscle-powered craft made of transparent metalar of quarter-mil thickness. She had a long pusher propeller and extremely lengthy shoulder-mounted wings that gave her good lift and soaring characteristics. Thistle also had a canard, a small steering wing, set at the end of a pole extending from her nose. Floyt thought the orange dawnlight streaming through her made Thistle a creation of unsurpassed beauty.
Floyt was glad that both competing bikes were conventional uprights; he had little experience with recumbents. It seemed that the Union Cyclist Internationale had banned the use of recumbents in official racing in 1938, Terran reckoning, and a peculiar snobbism had kept offworld parvenus from popularizing them in air biking.
"I wish we could get going," Alacrity said, shivering.
"Yes. I'm cold too."
"It's not that, Ho. Halidome's going to rise soon. You won't believe how hot it's gonna get inside that thing. Drink all the liquids you can."
"But the weight—"
"You'll lose it double—'stat once we're airborne."
Floyt, an experienced racer, needed no further urging. He swigged from a bottle of fortified fruit juice and bit into another carbohydrate bar. Alacrity had two of the ground crew give Thistle one more quick going-over with their evaporators, to cut down on the weight of condensation she'd have to carry aloft.
Over by Feather, the biplane airbike selected by Dincrist and his partner, the Presbyter Kuss, some last-minute adjustments were being made. Feather, like Thistle, was framed with incredibly strong, light tubing and had fiber-cable control lines. Alacrity had chosen a monoplane over a biplane because, even though the other was the more rugged design, Thistle had an edge in maneuverability. He was even more opposed to less conventional designs, like the flying wing with a pedaling nacelle at both ends.
While Alacrity ran a last check on the tiny commo button clipped to his wrist sweatband, Floyt looked over the pedaling assembly. He was once more amazed at the lightness and strength of the exotic composite materials used. He dearly wished to try an equally advanced bicycle—to take one back to Earth, if it were possible. Surely that wouldn't be too much to ask of Earthservice?
He turned his attention to the single landing wheel, and the emergency snare mounted along the airbike's underbelly. It was a flat envelope of adhesive ribbons like those of the snarley-ball thrown at Alacrity back at Machu Picchu. Alacrity and the crew chief had pronounced themselves satisfied with it; Floyt, eyeing the insubstantial stuff of the packet, wasn't so confident.
First Councillor Inst stumped over to Feather in the metal exoskeleton of an antigrav-harness. The Severeemish had been opposed to any kind of safety escort for the two racers; there'd been none in Slaughter Strait. But Tiajo insisted; the route of the race, agreed upon after considerable wrangling, was over some rough and dangerous country. Arguments for a shorter, safer course and more escort flyers had been met by Sortie-Wolf's accusation that Tiajo was trying to turn a grudge match into a dilettantes' outing.
So one escort was a compromise. Several nominees had been discussed, including Redlock and Maska, along with some of Dincrist's cronies. For various reasons, Alacrity or Dincrist had objections to almost all. In the end they'd settled on Inst, somewhat at Tiajo's urging. At least it stood in his favor that he'd averted a death duel, or a war, by dredging up a bit of Severeemish history.
By the time final arrangements—choice of routes, air-bikes, escort, and so on—had been made, it was late in the evening, but Alacrity demanded the opportunity for a test flight, to check the lay of the land and the aircraft. The Severeemish had told him, with vast amusement, to go right ahead, since he had all night for the project. He'd made an answer not suitable in polite company and dropped the idea.
Inst's exoskeleton was mounted with a small, powerful winch whose cable ended in a snap-hook. He could make fast to hoisting hooks located at the tops of the airbike fuselages to prevent a crash—perhaps. Of course, he couldn't save both at once. That, too, seemed to tickle the minister and the general.
Inst also wore a medical kit and long-range communicator. A pair of vision enhancers, flipped up, rode his brow. Clipped to the power pack on his back was a blaster.
Alacrity had been very dubious about that last, but anyone on the ground out in the wilds was liable to run into large, vici
ous things that were hungry and prepared to do something about it.
Crew people gingerly lifted Feather to fit her into her launch slot. Dincrist, Kuss, and a few followers came after. The tycoon's choice of the presbyter as partner made sense; the athletic clergyman had airbiking experience. And, he'd been one of those unhorsed and humiliated during the wood-sprite prank. Jaw set and eyes narrowed, he now looked disinclined to discuss matters of the spirit with Floyt or anyone else.
More crew took up Thistle now. Feather would launch from station number one, Thistle from number five, in order to minimize the chances of friction between the two teams.
Tiajo sat near the hangar, with Dorraine, Redlock, Inst, and the two Severeemish. "I'm going to make sure the rules're clear," Alacrity said and ambled off in their direction. Admiral Maska intercepted him.
"I just wanted to wish you and Hobart well," the sleepy-eyed Srillan said. "I hope the Strange Attractors favor you."
"Strange Attractors?" Alacrity had heard the term somewhere, but couldn't recall its meaning.
"Antiquated terminology. It's come to represent the hidden forces holding sway over chaotic dynamics—you know: air turbulence, electrical potential across cell membranes, and so forth."
"Oh. Right. Well, we could definitely use 'em on our side. And an engine; I wouldn't mind one of those, either."
Maska snuffled laughter and added, "When a system is no longer deterministic, Strange Attractors are at work. Good luck, Alacrity."
"Thank you, Maska." He watched the admiral walk away.
Floyt and Sintilla made their way to launch slot five. At number one, Dincrist and Kuss had stripped down and were doing loosening-up exercises. Floyt shed his heavy coat; Sintilla held it for him as he too warmed up in the chilly air. The light of Halidome was just touching the uppermost reaches of Frostpile, turning it to orange-red intaglio. Feather's team began boarding, moving gently and carefully.
The Terran glanced around and saw that Alacrity still stood near the nobles, but he appeared to be on the periphery of things. Redlock was erect in the manner of an ancient Prussian, Dorraine on his arm. She seemed to be addressing Seven Wars formally. After a brief exchange, the minister gave the queen a courteous bow; she returned it with a grateful nod of the head.
